1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method appropriate, for example, for color matching processing between display units and printers based on correction of displayed color.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, an RGB (Red, Green and Blue) colorimetric system is used for display units, and a CMY(K) (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and (Black)) colorimetric system is used for printers. In a system such as a host system, data which are created or acquired by application software or image scanners are usually stored in the form of the RGB colorimetric data. Display units perform color display based on the RGB colorimetric data, whereas printers perform color printing after converting the RGB colorimetric data into CMY(K) colorimetric data.
Thus, conventional color matching processings between display units and printers depend on a manner in which colors represented in terms of RGB in systems are converted to colors represented in terms of CMY(K). In a practical conversion method generally used, the entire color system expressed by the RGB colorimetric system in an operating system is assigned to a color system reproducible by a printer.
In the conventional method, display units individually reproduce colors, and printers also separately reproduce colors on the basis of the color data in the operating system. The color matching between the color displayed on the display units and the color printed by the printers is carried out depending only on the color outputted by the printers.
The color reproducible power of the display units and that of the printers, however, considerably differ in practice, and the reproducible color system is usually narrower in the printers than in the display units. Consequently, there are some colors that cannot be reproduced by the printers among the colors displayed on the display units. In addition, there are some cases where a color identically expressed in the operating system is displayed in different colors on the display units. Thus, a problem arises that high accuracy color matching is rather difficult in the conventional method.